RAJNATH SINGH ASKS ICAR INSTITUTES TO GENERATE RESOURCES

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The Agriculture Minister, Shri Rajnath Singh has called upon the institutes of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) to generate resources at their level to tide over the problem of insufficient funds for research. He was addressing a conference of Directors and Chairmen of Research Advisory Committees of the ICAR here today. Stressing the need to make farming an economically viable profession, the Minister called upon agricultural scientists to develop techniques of low cost farming. As a large portion of agricultural land still depends on rains, it is essential to develop effective techniques of water conservation. Shri Rajnath Singh also called for intensification of research in the areas of bio-technology and diversification of crops. The Minister said that agricultural scientists have played a big role in increasing the agricultural production of the country, but they have not received the desired assistance and encouragement. He assured that all efforts would be made to keep up the morale of agricultural scientists. Shri Rajnath Singh said that recent reduction in the interest rate on farm loans is a big step in favour of farmers, but much more effort is required to make agriculture profitable.

The Minister also launched a website of the ICAR for providing agro meteorological information to farmers, administrators, planners and other users. The website will provide information on monsoon conditions, crop data generated at various ICAR Institutes and State Agricultural Universities, agro advisories for farmers with value added information and advance estimates of food grains production, etc. The address of the website is : dryland.ap.nic.in